Incessant rain swept across Delhi and its suburbs through Thursday (October 29) night, cutting temperatures sharply, soaking roads and clearing the air. Residents woke on Friday to a wintry nip and overcast skies, with the weather office expecting showers to persist through the day before conditions settle early next month.
Delhi's overall air quality index stood at 76 on Friday morning, the Central Pollution Control Board said, placing the city in the satisfactory category after levels had stayed above 200 on both Wednesday and Thursday. A separate board reading for 4 am on Friday put the index at 133 in the moderate band, however, and the reports available did not reconcile the two figures.
Station-level readings varied widely. Burari recorded 71 while Uttam Nagar touched 144, Badarpur 142, Pusa 138, Jahangirpuri and Rohini 128 each, Sirifort 127 and Dwarka Sector 8 126, the board said. Jharoda Kalan, R.K. Puram, IIT Delhi, Narela, Najafgarh, Bawana and the Commonwealth Sports Complex logged between 104 and 142, leaving the capital with a patchwork of cleaner and moderately polluted neighbourhoods.
On October 29, the India Meteorological Department put Delhi and neighbouring NCR districts under a yellow alert, warning of rain and thunderstorms over the next 24 to 48 hours. The Regional Meteorological Centre in New Delhi said Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurugram and Faridabad would see largely overcast skies, a spell or two of light to moderate rain, thunder and lightning, and heavy rain in isolated pockets at night.
Showers are expected to continue on Friday, with rain ranging from very light to light in many places and moderate spells during the morning and forenoon. Skies should turn partly cloudy on October 31, with no warnings in force, and mainly clear, steadier weather is forecast for November 1 and November 2.
Visuals from Hazrat Nizamuddin railway station and the Jamia Millia Islamia area showed rain-soaked roads and a steady downpour under dark clouds late on Thursday. Thursday was also Delhi's coldest October day in four years, with the mercury 5.6 degrees Celsius below normal as Cyclone Arnab weakened, the weather office said.
For the capital, the relief is likely to hold. The wet spell that began late on Thursday has pulled the index down from the poor band, and the forecast points to clearer skies and steadier weather as November begins, though the morning's competing figures leave the exact picture unsettled.
Forecasters have also flagged a low-to-moderate risk of flash floods until October 30 in vulnerable watersheds spread across several districts of Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh. No weather warning is in place for Delhi on Saturday.
(With inputs from media reports)